While it is a truism to observe that if humans were angels, law would be unnecessary, we could equally turn the truism around, and note that if humans were devils, law would be pointless. In this sense, the law-making project always presupposes the improvability, if not the perfectibility, of humankind. Whether our view of human nature tends toward Hobbesian grimness or Rousseauian equanimity, we tend to think of law as critical to reducing brutality and violence. Rosa Brooks
About This Quote

The human being is a social being who can commit atrocities. But can anything be found in man which justifies the rule of law?

Source: How Everything Became War And The Military Became Everything: Tales From The Pentagon

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